After looking at the market trend in the natural field I am going to talk about how to translate the natural concept in technical terms from the purest to the modern definitions, what it means to formulate following natural guidelines and what is achievable. I will simplify and try to explain the different views and interpretations on the market looking at also what makes a material natural or what prevents a product from being truly natural.
Starting from the definition of natural, natural is what is found in nature, anything that comes from the vegetable, mineral and animal worlds. As we know most of the natural materials found in nature are not ready to use as such, therefore they need to be processed using different techniques:
* pressing seeds and oily fruit to produce vegetable oils and fats (ideally cold processing in order to retain vitamins, sterols, tocopherols, carotenoids, etc.), and pressing of citrus peels to make citrus oils
* steam distillation of plant material to make essential oils and hydrolats